Mopsy Q. Mayflower – A strange little girl with no past,
no memory, and an oddly-colored eye. Nobody knows who her parents were, or
where she came from. She’ll tell you, if you ask – just give her a minute to
make something up. Yeah, I know, she kind of creeps me
out, too.

Elsbeth Whorley-Wyndham – Her parents have everything:
mansions, limousines – and a 25-year prison sentence for fraud. When the (unimprisoned) remnants of her family refuse to take her in,
Elsbeth is sent to live at Edgecliff Abbey. Not to worry – vengeance is a dish
best served cold, and Elsbeth is a patient girl. She will one day become a
princess – or someone’s getting hurt.

Gretchen Bright-Eyes – When German naturalists Hans and Ute Hellaugen’s helicopter crashed in a remote valley in the Rocky Mountains, they needn’t have worried about their
surviving infant daughter Gretchen – wolves make excellent foster parents.
Gretchen is adapting nicely to civilization, now. Still chases the mailman, but
she’s stopped drinking out of the toilet, leastways.

Kiku Kiragami – A Japanese exchange student born to a
strictly traditional family, Kiku has been sent to live in America. And although she has sworn to her
uncle to always uphold the code of the Samurai, behind her stern demeanor and
wooden sword lies a sweet little girl who wants what any little girl wants: to
pilot a fearsome giant robot with shoulder-mounted laser cannon.

Nephrikamun Taharqo – Nephri is a Nubian princess –
literally – and living proof that a University that puts its display of
Egyptian mummies too close to a cloning lab full of hyperactive graduate
students hasn’t really thought things through. Although she remembers her past existence
a bit too vividly for modern science to explain, Nephri is enjoying the life of
an ordinary modern girl – so pharaoh, so good, as she’d say – but I’ll warn you
that her habit of sleeping perfectly still on a stone slab takes a little
getting used to.

The Edgecliff Abbey Staff

Mother Merry Chaos – Described by some as a rhinoceros
that’s been taught to stand upright and recite Scripture, Mother Merry has,
against all sane advice, re-opened the orphanage at Edgecliff Abbey. You see,
Mother Merry doesn’t know the meaning of the word “defeat.” She doesn’t know
the meaning of the word “pertinacious” either, and has no idea when the laundry
gets picked up. Life is, for her, basically, a blur, and she’s even beginning
to suspect she may be a fictional character in a book written by a strange
bearded man and his bizarre little daughter.

Sister Dominique LeCroix – Mother Merry’s long-suffering
secretary, kindly young Sister Dominique is dedicated to her tasks of minding
the children, fishing important papers out of wherever Mother Merry may throw
them, publishing a Mr. Gongrafen-to-English dictionary, and convincing anyone
who’ll listen that her name is not “Dominic.”

Mr. Gongrafen – Groundskeeper, sexton, and all-round
handy-man of Edgecliff Abbey, Gunnar Gongrafen
describes his job as “spadlingsnodge,
swoppingloomies, and
keeping the sproggen from scootlin’
abootth’furboatin’ spots o’ th’Abbey,
yet.” (No, I don’t know what that means, neither.) And although he may look
like some mad-scientist’s failed early-effort monster-project, beneath his scarred
exterior beats the heart of – well, some dug-up organ donor, I’d bet.

Nicole Scullyand
Dana Bosch – High-school youth volunteers who work with the children at the
orphanage. Nicole is bright, pious, studious, cheerful, and energetic, while
Dana is, mm, not.

Mrs. Arkham – Child Services administrator to the
newly-reopened orphanage. Has an interest in seeing Edgecliff Abbey fail, and
will do anything to make that happen. Put it this way: if you were God and saw
Emperor Nero, Vlad the Impaler,
and Mrs. Arkham walking together, and you only had two lightning bolts and had
to choose whom to zap – zap Arkham twice.

Friends (and Enemies),
Romans, Countrymen

Mr. Tiberius Crow – There are wealthy industrialists who
are great philanthropists and use their great resources to better their fellow
men and women – and then there’s Mr. Crow. Edgecliff Abbey sits upon land that
Mr. Crow wants for his corporation, and Mr. Crow is used to getting what he
wants. (Give this guy a white cat and a giant laser and he’d be a James Bond
villain.)

Mrs. Bolls – If education is the fire that tempers
young minds, then a teacher like Mrs. Bolls is the hammer that keeps pounding
them down. ‘Nuff said.

Miss Killpenny
– In spite of having a
slight handicap, Ellen Killpenny is a phys-ed teacher
par excellence. At 22 she became the first American woman to scale Mount Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair. Upon witnessing this
feat (and her ride back down) the native guides gave her the name “Similla” – which means, in Swahili, “Everybody get out of the way!” She is also single, likes cats and
foreign films, and is interested in friendship, dating, and a potentially
serious relationship. (She asked me to include that in case any attractive
young men were reading this.)

Principal Roman Castlewick – Well, technically the only “Roman” in
the bunch, but a forward-thinking School Administrator nonetheless. “The office
of Principal demands respect,” quoth he, “and respect
must be earned. It cannot be forced out of a child, nor bought nor sold, nor
traded for seal-pelts and scrimshaw, nor quarried like granite, nor rendered
out of a child by boiling.” Hmm.

Justy,
Dean, Chaz, and Ulrich – Although not scholarly nor athletic, these four school-mates of our girls have
elevated dodgeball to a combination of sport, martial
art, and John Woo film.

People of the Storybook

King Dobregan
– Ruler of Fairyland, a
kingdom under siege by an evil sorcerer. Seriously
reconsidering the whole monarchy thing in favor of free elections with strict
term limitations.

Lukasz – An ogre. Well, not really, just this really big,
strong, ugly guy (don’t tell him I said that).

Namthoob
– The aforementioned
Evil Sorcerer, who is convinced he could conquer all of Fairyland, if only he
had a cooler name.

The Range Riders! – In their own words: “We ride! Our heroic
feats of derring-do bring us from the Eastern Shore to the Northern Wastes, to the Western Forests, down to
the Southern Desert, and back to the Eastern Sh—Great
Thunder! We’re just riding in a big circle, aren’t we…?”

Tangerine – A giant fire-breathing dragon. (OK,
if you want to know how a giant fire-breathing dragon got the name “Tangerine”
– you’ll just have to read the book.)